Laughter and Holi, a holy concoction

By a neat trickery of inter-language language, 'Holi' and 'holy' coalesce and coincide in one phonetically indistinguishable word puff. The festival of colours, love and spring to toast the eternal love of Radha and Krishna also celebrate the divine love, bringing in the gulaal of the sacred, the 'holy'. But this meeting at the crossroads of a Hindi and an English word may throw light - and colour - on one fundamental aspect of 'Holiness' that is usually missed out by our standard interpretation of 'holiness': it's joyous, celebratory aspect that is far removed from matters held serious and full of gravitas. That the sacred can be - and, indeed, is - a whirligig, full of loudness and laughter is underlined by all that is holy in Holi and all that is Holi in things held holy.

In his 1979 masterpiece, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, Milan Kundera hit the proverbial nail on the head in the line, 'To laugh is to live profoundly.' In the grand melee of Holi over the next couple of days, what we witness, share and experience is this profundity of laughter. Solemnity has its place in the world - of quietude, of reflection, of prayer. But whoever said that the sacred is to remain solemn to remain sacred? Christmas is simultaneously sacral and joyous because of 'Ho! Ho! Ho!' As is 'Ho! Ho! Holi!' reminding us that to laugh is to be divine.